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Li Shuo fires two arrows in smooth succession. The first manages to fly in between all the allies in the way and plunges into the orc's shoulder, but the second clips against the corner of the passageway instead. Jasmine moves up but chooses not to attack, instead looking down the side passage. Up to the extent of the lighting, she merely sees it leading to either a t-junction or another room.
The orc, his mind seized again by Alahazra's spell, moves straight towards her, circling around the dais back into the grease patch to get closer to her. Slade, waiting just for this moment, lashes out again with his fist, smashing hard into his head. Unable to defend himself, he is forced to continue moving forward. Slade takes the opportunity of this opening and performs a round-house kick, again at the head. This cracks the skull of the orc who collapses onto the grease patch, blood leaking out copiously from his nose and ears.
Going through his belongings you find 40 arrows, 2 tanglefoot bags, a masterwork battleaxe and 56gp. In addition, you find two magical arrows, a potion, and magical studded leather and magical composite shortbow .
Alahazra quickly drops to one knee and casts stabilize on the orc, hoping he is still on this side of the Boneyard. She then draws her healing wand and taps Li Shuo four times with it, restoring him to full vigor. "That was unfortunate, but what's done is done," she says sadly, already having moved to scanning his gear for magic.
"Those two are relatively strong curative elixirs, and that armor will protect you slightly better than most of its variety. I could not get a read on the arrows or the bow, but they are magical as well."
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The orc would likely remain unconscious for some time so after tying him up , the party decides to first explore the passageway that the archer had been retreating to. This first leads to a chamber with a five-foot wide pit of unknown depth leading straight down into the darkness, which you decide to leave aside for now. You then come across a couple of rooms which seems to have been barracks. Sleep mats, broken weapons, and dirty clothes clutter the area, but they have been abandoned for some time now.
The southeastern room is somewhat disturbing. This appears to have originally been a dwarven chapel, likely dedicated to Torag, but it has since been desecrated and rededicated it to Nulgreth, the orc god of bloodlust and fighting. A charred orc corpse hanging over a pool of blood accentuates the grisly atmosphere in this befouled shrine. Broken implements of bloodletting and torture lie on the bloodstained stone altar.
Not wishing to stay in the room for long, you take a quick look at the adjacent room. This seemed to have been some kind of meeting room originally. Carved maps of the surrounding area decorate the walls, though orcs have added their own grizzly markers to the stony cartography. Burned wood, pottery fragments, and ancient dwarven utensils litter the floor. With nothing of interest, the party moves on.
Finally in the easternmost room, you find evidence that these ruins might indeed have been the final resting place of the samurai you are seeking. This room’s stonework suggests a dwarven architect, but the floor and walls display carvings of Tien design. This rooms shows evidence of renovation and dedication as a shrine to Shizuru, the Minkai goddess of the sun. Carvings of swimming carp, Shizuru’s sacred animal, cover the western wall. The eastern wall carving depicts a katana over the sun, Shizuru’s holy symbol. On the orthern wall is a carving of two Minkai elven women standing before funerary pyre. The floor boasts the carving of an imperial sky dragon. To further support this, further along you find a sovereign dragon statue, likely erected to guard the shrine to Shizuru.
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Coming back to the room with the giant skull, the party retraces its step back to the room with the pit but turning west instead. A stone statue of a horrifying creature with several tentacles for a face sits in the corner of this room. The creature appears to be rearing back in preparation to strike. Fragments of the statue of Torag lie strewn about the room. From the remains, it had once faced off this monster, but has since been destroyed. Further in the room, a flight of stairs lead to lower levels but repeated cave-ins have completely sealed the stairs. You thus head north into a room that from a distance, you can hear sounds of flowing water.
A rectangular basin of clear, warm water fills most of this room, leaving only a five-foot walkway around the edge. The humid air rising from the pool keeps plants, including forms of moss and fungi, alive along the room’s walls and ceiling. The ancient dwarves must have tapped into an underground hot spring for the pool. The warmth and humidity has caused slime to form everywhere in this room, requiring you to be careful with your steps as you enter.
As Li Shuo, Slade and Manathiel enter the room, some of the vines seem to start moving?
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"I don't recognize the bow, but the arrows are enhanced with fire. " advises the elf.
Taking in the sights, he smiles. "I'm certain we're in the right place."
"Uh, Slade, those vines don't look friendly!"
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These gnarled vines, as thick as a man’s arm and bearing handshaped leaves, convulses along the ceiling and across the ground in an unnatural slither.
Only Slade and Roderick sees and hears respectively the unusual movement of the vines, while Manathiel recognises that these are not ordinary vines!
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"Good advise Roderick." replies Manathiel as he quickly summons up a glob of acid and launches it at the nearest vine.
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Manathiel summons a glob of acid that flies at the vine, burning a sizeable hole on it. It writhes in pain.
The vine on the right slithers ponderously forward, gripping the ground despite the slime. It waves some of its vine-like appendages in the air and suddenly all the plants and fungi in the room burst forth, coming alive and grabbing at whoever is in the room.
The other vine flicks one of its tendrils at high speed towards Slade but despite the entangling plants, he manages to duck just in time.
"Beyond that, I have yet to encounter a plant that can withstand my fire," Alahazra says, She draws a wand and shoots a bolt of flame at the mass of vines she can see.
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Summoning another acid glob, he lobs it at the same vine as before.
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Alahazra attempts to fire a ray of fire at the one vine that she can see, but trying to aim past all her allies proves difficult and instead, she ends up burning up some fungi on the wall.
Stepping carefully on the slippery floor while dodging the plants reaching for him, Slade moves closer to the nearest vine. It lashes out a tendril at him as he approaches but this time, it's aim is bad and it misses again. Slade has no problem and he slices a large chunk off the plant with his falcata.
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Jasmine fires her crossbow at the vine from outside the room, but the bolt simply bounces off its tough hide. Manathiel ducks and weaves as he summons his arcane power, launching another orb of acid at the same vine, again burning through its hide. Roderick manages to lob a bomb with great accuracy at the vine. The resulting explosion engulfs the vine, but when it clears, the vine does not appear very badly singed, protected by its tough and moist hide. The other is completely unharmed.
Li Shuo, with a serene grace, avoids the entangling plants as well. With the same calmness, he launches 3 arrows in rapid succession, all strikes with great force, slamming in the vine with great force. The vine collapses into a heap from all that damage.
The remaining vine mindlessly continues its attack on Slade. One of its tendrils smashes across his waste, cracking quite a number of ribs. What's worse, it manages to wrap its tendril tightly around around him and starts crushing his life out of him!
"Resistant to fire? A useful quality for a plant, but a slight annoyance to us. In that case, I will leave this in your obviously capable hands," Alahazra says, lightly tapping Jasmine's shoulder. "Allow me to make them more so."
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Attempting to avoid the vines again, Manathiel stumbles. Finding himself wrapped up in the thing, he frowns. "Now this just won't do!."
Closing his eyes a moment, the man disappears in a puff of green smoke and reappears a few feet away.
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Roderick waits for an opportune time to step in. Alahazra brings divine guidance onto Jasmine, but even with that, her crossbow bolt still fails to penetrate the thick hide of the plant creature. Slade, near the verge of collapse, swings with his falcata at close range. Narrowly avoiding cutting himself, he manages to slice the vine in two. It collapses in a pile of green sap, finally releasing Slade.
A few minutes after the two vines are taken out, the plants in the room gradually settle down, returning to their inanimate state. You then manage to get a good look around the room.
Alahazra looks about the room in search of anything interesting, but her eyes once again fail her. She does, however, notice that Slade requires medical attention. "Those vines must have crushed you half to death. Allow me to remedy."
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After helping Slade recover from the devastating attack, the party gathers its new found loot and presses on.
The party first exits north. Finding a flight of stairs that leads further down into the ruins, you elect to take the other passage and continue heading north, coming again to a room that appears to be once a barracks for the orcs. Again pressing north, you come to a bare room except for a badly damaged statue. From the marks left on it, it seems that the orcs who infested this ruins earlier had used it for practice fighting and thus its original features are unrecognizable. Making a slight detour to the east, you find similar scenes of destruction in what appears to have once been a display room for dwarven reliquary. Now, however, the display cases are shattered. Pottery chips and fractured pieces of stone clutter the floor. An unrecognizable statue
stands on a high dais in the northwestern corner.
Turning back, the party heads over the next room. In the lead, Li Shuo suddenly detects a faint scent of rancid vinegar which gets stronger as you enter the next room, again what appears to be an abandoned barracks. Right in the corner, thousands of tiny gelatinous clots of animate ooze swarm in a wet mound. They sense your presence and swarm towards you!
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"Nice blade. Some powerful magic on it. But I can't quite make it out."
"Those are amoeba...think a swarm of goo...in my experience, it tends to be best to stay out of the alchemist's way here. Roderick? If you don't mind..." announces the elven man as he backs out of the room.
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Manathiel, Slade and Jasmine back out of the room, while Roderick moves in, armed with one of his bombs. He tosses it right into the midst of the swarm and the gooey mess explodes, splattering the room with the remains of the amoebas.
Just as you are thinking an easy battle was over, what had appeared to be just a puddle of water to one side suddenly slithers forward and reaches out a pseudopod to slam against Li Shuo! It smashes into his thigh, and he starts feeling a numbness spreading from the slime that is covering his leg. The pseudopod attempts to coil around his leg.
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"Uh, guys...Yeats an ooze. It can paralyze you with a touch. Best to stay at range if we can." He advises the others.
Moving to the far side, keep close to the walls, he conjures up his trust ball of goo and launches it at the creature.
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The numbness from the slime quickly spreads across Li Shuo's body, paralyzing him in place. This allows the ooze to wrap its pseudopod neatly around his thigh, and starts draining blood from him through that contact!
Hearing Li Shuo call out at the new danger, Jasmine races back into the room and fires her crossbow at the ooze, but she misses in her haste. Manathiel faces similar difficulty in trying to hit the near invisible ooze. Alahazra, on the other hand, despite her poor vision, is guided perhaps by divine sight. She summons divine fire bursting from her hands which smashes into the ooze, boiling off some of its mass. All in good time, too, as Slade rushes in front, blocking her from her direct sight of the creature. He slices his weapon down on it, but the ooze proves too elusive for him this time. Roderick moves into the room and stabs at the creature with his longspear, but the ooze manages to dodge this attack as well.
Li Shuo struggles mightily and finally breaks free from the paralysis but he is drained from the effort.
The ooze, pleased with the meal it is getting, attempts to tighten its hold on Li Shuo, but no longer paralyzed, he easily slips free from its grasp.
Although one prey has escaped, another presented itself. It sends out another pseudopod towards Slade, this one successfully slamming into his waist. Again the slime spreads numbness into him system. The ooze coils its pseudopod tightly around Slade, and also starts draining blood from him.